Plane Headed For Mobile Hits Birds

Alabama Mobile Passengers heard a loud thud shortly after takeoff from Atlanta.

by WKRG Staff

Published: Thu, March 12, 2009 - 11:33 pm CST Last Updated: Fri, March 13, 2009 - 12:24 pm CST

10:00 a.m.
- The first wave of Flight 5221 passengers landed in Mobile at 9:30 a.m.

12:34 a.m.
Some mobile passengers will head home today, after their plane made an emergency Thursday night because it hit a couple of geese.

Shortly after Flight 5221 took off from Atlanta, passengers heard a loud thud. The pilot said they were going to circle over Rome, Georgia until they burn off enough fuel to land because they had hit two geese.

The plane landed safely in Atlanta. The wife of our Executive Producer was on that flight. Sarah Burch tells News 5 she and other passengers first thought the pilot was joking when he told them the plane hit some birds. They quickly realized that he was serious. Once the plane landed, Burch says you could see visible damage to the nose and right wing of the plane. She describes the damage as large dents.

Delta gave passengers hotel vouchers and will get them booked on other flights to Mobile later today, but because most flights are booked, it could be a long day of waiting in the Atlanta airport for these passengers.

ASA Spokesperson Allison Baker says the 50 seater CRJ 100 hit what they think is two birds, but she says the species is still under investigation.

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john Says:

Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:53 am

bird strikes are getting to be a big problem for avation. I live on a flight path to KSDF, and you would be surprised at the amount of birds withen 5 miles of the airport. Its great that they are all okay, and lets see if we can get this problem solved before it is to late.